My right foot is my VSA Learned the hard-earned way with autocrossing & track days.

That being said, I don't think it's bad to have VSA on a car, especially if it's 100% defeatable.

 

Wish I had vsa. Any traction control that can be turned completely off is a BIG in my book, especially when you have to drive in the snow!!

 

as long as it can be turned off, its a plus. i have an ap1, if vsa was an option id take it. but if it was like the vdc of the 350z it would suck coz it cannot be turned off completly

 

conclusion:


s2k with VSA > s2k without VSA > 350z with VDC

 

VSA is a great feature, my personal issue with features such as VSA is they offer "creeping featurism". The more doodads you bolt on the more complicated and error prone the system becomes. For an example of extreme featurism look to MB or BMW. These cars are nearly impossible to service at home, break down continuously and are expensive to maintain and repair. Everything is connected to everything else and all those knobs potentially break or fall off. What I love about the S2000 is how simple it is and how easy it is for even a novice at home mechanic with a metric ratchet set to perform regular maintenance on. I resist all new or improved changes in the interest of keeping the car as simple and straight-forward as possible.

For me VSA would always be off because I have an intimate understanding of what the limits of the car and driver are through six years and 10000 miles of on-track experience. I'm not saying it's bad, contrary, it's a very good and from what I understand very well implemented. It gets my

To contrast the complexity issues, the service manual for my 2000 E46 323 is 1200 pages thick, 3 times thicker than the service manual for my S2000. I can only imagine the manual for a new BMW 3-series has been broken down into multiple volumes as I don't think you can bind any more paper together in one book.

 

i had "active handling" on my z06 and i'd be damned if i ever drove it w/out the active handling on unless it was at a track that i knew damn well. there is a reason that the button is there. anyone that says ur inexperienced because you need that button is an idiot.

 

^^ Extremely perceptive. "Creeping featurism" (which actually sounds like something from a grade-B horror movie) seems to afflict high-end cars, and it's just not a good thing. I had Audis for a number of years, and they were quite proud of their advanced engineering, but I got tired of all those creepy features after a while. HPH

 

why wouldn't you want it? you can always turn it off right? of course there are always those guys out there that probably wouldn't want it because of the extra weight...lame

 

agreed, and yeah...extra weight. for most of us- these are street cars and i don't see the huge difference that weight would make.

 

I think for me VSA is a little disappointing because it goes against the nature of the beast.

00-01 - The car is one of the purest forms of sports cars available. It will bite your head off if you don't respect it. It's just like a sportbike, it'll do exactly what you ask it to, but inexperience leads people to ask above their ability.

02-03 - Suspension gets tweaked (swaybars,etc), the car is a little softer.

04-05 - Engine changed to produce lower revving, and more midrange torque; easier power to use, i'd say. You don't have to work quite as hard to keep the car in it's sweet spot. Suspension tweaked again.

06 - DBW, VSA, etc introduced. VSA isn't going to make you faster around a track, it's going to keep you from asking the car for something and not being able to handle what happens.

That said, I'm biased because I have an 01; having driven DBW cars (S included) and VSA cars; it's not for me. I want to know that if I (the driver) ask too much and crash, it was my fault.

To each his own, VSA is definitely useful for those that love how the car looks and don't necessarily want to drive at the limit of the car or their abilities.